


and it all becomes silence

by zimtlein



Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Angst and Porn, Character Study, F/M, Implied/Referenced Cheating, Manipulative Relationship, Mildly Dubious Consent, Possibly Unrequited Love, Post-Episode: s03 Chat Blanc, Unhealthy Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-12
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-18 07:08:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29239590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zimtlein/pseuds/zimtlein
Summary: “You promised you’d fix it,” he mutters, closing his eyes, pressing his forehead against hers. “Where did it go wrong?”
Relationships: Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir & Emilie Agreste, Adrien Agreste | Chat Noir/Marinette Dupain-Cheng | Ladybug
Comments: 16
Kudos: 60
Collections: Finished Reading





	and it all becomes silence

**Author's Note:**

> This is set after S3 Cat Blanc in the alternate timeline Ladybug left behind. (The show did imply that timeline was never entirely erased, after all.)

Plates clinking. A rainy day outside. Adrien glances at the food before him. He looks up. Across from him, at a place nobody occupied for years and years, sits his mother. Green eyes return his look, a reflection of his own.

“How did you do it?” he asks.

“What do you mean, dear?” she returns, fork freezing in the air.

“With dad. He loved you. He loved you so much.”

Emilie nods. Doesn’t put the fork down. That would have been the polite thing to do, probably. Instead, she takes a bite. Chews. Seconds. Adrien doesn’t feel hungry. He stares at the dish. The finest chef in Paris. Emilie kept him, because, why not? It was his father’s choice. His father’s choices hardly matter anymore.

“How did I make him love me?” she asks.

His cheeks burn. It’s not how he wanted to ask.

“Sometimes,” Emilie says, voice comforting and warm, “you’ll have to be smart about love, chéri.”

Love can’t be rational, he thinks, but he doesn’t say it out loud. Emilie would have listened, contrary to his father; but Emilie would have had an answer, too.

“Your father and I, we became two parts of a whole.”

He picks at his food, kicking potatoes around.

“We had you, too.”

He shoves the potato to the other side again.

“He needed me.”

“Did you need him?” Adrien asks, even though he knows the answer.

A clear little laugh. “Does it look like I do?”

He shakes his head.

“Because I was smart about it. Because, chéri, love is a whole. And you are a part of it. Be the stronger part.”

“You’re making it sound like it’s a battle.”

Emilie stays silent. Adrien inwardly cowers. Only hesitantly, he looks up. Instead of being met by disappointment and dripping anger, angelic patience colors her features. Soft smile, soft golden hair, and Emilie takes another bite.

“How many times did you have to fight for her?”

Often enough. Adrien stays silent.

“See? Love is a battle. Be the stronger one.”

“Were you the stronger one?”

“I’m alive right now, aren’t I?”

Adrien swallows. His throat is sore. “Do you miss him?”

Emilie hiccups. Laughs quietly, leaning her head back. Golden hair cascades down the chair. It’s a rainy day outside, but there’s no thunder. Silence rings when every laugh has faded, and Emilie looks at the ceiling, a white pure dress on her body, wrinkles on her skin Adrien couldn’t remember – signs of the time in which he started to forget what it was like to miss her.

“Do you know who the stronger one was?”

Adrien is pretty sure he knows the answer.

_“I’m gonna fix everything, Chat Noir. I promise!”_

She promised. He waited. Destroyed buildings were surrounding him. His memories gone. He wasn’t dumb. He had an inkling of what had happened. Somehow, deep in his mind, he was endlessly grateful that it had all escaped him. That he could close his eyes and hold back tears as ladybugs swarmed him, the city, the world, the sky. That all he had to think about was an ever-resting face behind glass.

She promised.

She didn’t fix everything.

They made it their home. An apartment Emilie had bought for them with a graceful smile and a little laugh at Marinette’s surprise. “And as soon as we’ve got your first little worm on the way, we’ll think about something bigger,” she added with a wink. Marinette’s blushing face was the most beautiful thing Adrien had ever seen. It still is.

Back then, she only occasionally flinched away from his touches.

These days, he stops in the doorframe, watching her. Her head turning slowly, eyes tired, body curled underneath her blanket. She puts her phone away, but doesn’t smile at him.

“How was dinner with your mom?” she asks.

“Good,” he returns. “She seems as healthy as ever.”

“Good,” she says.

Silence. Marinette looks away. Her eyes are glazed over.

“Wine?” he asks.

“Early day tomorrow,” she returns.

“It’s only eight.”

“Exactly.”

“I can tell my mother to cut you a little break.”

Her smile is ironic and stings. “Don’t. It will just make me look bad with the others. Not as if they like me much anyway.”

“Did someone …”

“No. Nothing happened. Nothing did, Adrien.”

His fingers tap against the doorframe. He comes closer. He sits down next to her. The TV is off, and it’s silent in here. The whole apartment for only themselves. When they furnished it, Marinette was constantly smiling. Smiling so hard it looked painful. They had only been seventeen, swearing to each other over and over again they’d stay together, they would, because they loved each other.

Really, they did.

They did.

“Okay. One glass of wine,” she says, climbing out of the blanket, avoiding his eyes. “Then I’ll go to sleep.”

“Sure.”

She steps into the kitchen. Her phone is still on the table before him. She left it without looking back once. Sometimes he almost wants to laugh about it, and sometimes he is almost angry that she can’t say with words what she really feels.

He doesn’t hesitate to take the phone. Types in her password.

She changed it.

His chest constricts.

Still, he can see that someone sent her a message. Listening for her steps, he opens it. Only the first few lines, only a name he knows too well, and Adrien feels the pitter-patter of his heart. Only a little tiny, “Have the sweetest dreams, my melody.” Only words that make him laugh soundlessly, and he puts the phone back, closes his eyes. Holds back tears. Waits and waits for someone to fix this someone anyone please –

There’s no Ladybug to promise him anything anymore.

He gets up. Hot-white and burning red. Asking and wondering. If Marinette’s eyes weren’t blue as the brightest day, they would be green like tropical nights.

She is still in the kitchen, back to him. She seems to be contemplating which wine to choose. The bottle Emilie gave them two years ago for their anniversary? The bottle they stole from the mansion’s wine cellar, drunk on expensive whiskey and on the feeling of trying their hardest to love on?

From the doorframe, he watches her. Sometimes the thought strikes him. A face so beautiful it would look angelic even when trapped in endless sleep. He wonders if that is what his father thought day after day after day. If he felt the same guilt eating him up from inside. Until his wish was granted at last.

“Take the bottle of Tignanello.”

She jumps, but doesn’t turn around to him. “Sure? That’s …”

“The one we took from my dad’s funeral. Yeah, I know.”

She hesitates. Then, she goes on her tiptoes to reach the wine shelf, pulling down the bottle of Tignanello. Expensive and too bitter, just like his father liked it, just like his father spent his whole life; living for someone else when not even that could change anything.

Emilie didn’t shed just one tear at his funeral.

A clank as the bottle is put on the counter. A shudder visibly running over her body as he steps closer. Living for someone else can be so easy when all you want to do is grovel at their feet, begging for forgiveness. When all you want to do is lose yourself in what makes you a whole. Being nothing without her, and she never needed him, and she gasps loudly as he grabs her arm and turns her around. His strength too much for her to break free, big blue eyes looking at him.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“When did it happen?” he asks.

Her mouth forms a soundless word. Lips press shut. Her heart is fluttering against his body. The subtle light of the living room catches her cheek. She didn’t bother turning on the kitchen lamps, and darkness flickers in her eyes. It suits her well.

“I never meant to hurt you, Marinette,” he goes on, fingers still digging into her skin. “I told you. I told you so often.”

“What … What do you …?”

“I’m not him. I would never … I’d never want to hurt you.”

Her face softens. “When you were … When Gabriel – when he akumatized you?”

His jaw sets. He doesn’t reply.

“Adrien. That was years ago.”

“You are scared of me,” he whispers.

“I’m not,” she lies with wide, innocent eyes.

He breathes. It feels like no air will reach his protesting lungs. He breathes harder. Attempts to find grounding in the way she tries to flinch away from him.

He doesn’t let her.

He grabs the back of her neck and kisses her so roughly their teeth clack against each other. She gives a sound, pushes herself away again. Her back is to the kitchen counter. Her hands are trembling as they grasp at its edge. Their lips move apart without a sound, leaving the faintest hint of desperation. Adrien holds her face in place, searching her eyes.

“You are scared of me,” he repeats.

This time, she doesn’t reply.

“When did it happen? When did you start being scared of me?”

Wide-eyed, breathless, a soft shake of her head, midnight hair playing around petite shoulders.

“It wasn’t me. I wasn’t myself when I … I can’t even remember.”

“I know,” she whispers. “I know it was your father who did this. Not you.”

“And you loved me. You loved me enough to still give him your Miraculous just days afterwards. You loved me.”

His grip on her loosens. She is shaking. Fear or longing, he doesn’t know the difference anymore.

“Do you regret it?” he asks.

“What?”

“Doing it. Giving him your Miraculous.”

No, it’s not her who is shaking. It’s him.

“You do,” she responds.

“I don’t,” he corrects, and he is almost inclined to believe it’s the truth.

“You don’t,” she repeats, and she sounds almost convinced.

Needy, needy hands grabbing and holding on and drowning in something long lost – he never understood his father. He never did. Giving his life for another person. Giving his all, his dignity, his last bit of sanity, giving it all away. Knowing that the moment eyes opened, they would have looked the other way, no matter what.

Maybe he understands him now.

“You promised you’d fix it,” he mutters, closing his eyes, pressing his forehead against hers. Shaking breaths against his skin. “Where did it go wrong?”

“Adrien … I just thought …”

“Tell me you love me.”

Silence.

He should let go of her. His hand still holds her in place, fingers digging into her chin. He should ask her for the truth. His other hand grabs her hip, pulls her flush against him. He should ask her what she wants. He tastes the silence on her lips, feels her quivering against him, bites her lower lip so roughly she jumps, hands flying to his shoulders to push him away. He complies. Looks at her, shock and fear and the slightest bit of something dark lingering beneath pretty, pretty eyes.

His heart is thundering.

“Tell me you love me,” he repeats.

“I –”

He kisses her again, pushes himself closer. The warmth of her body a stark contrast to how she started looking at him months, years ago. Nails digging into his skin as he kisses her harder, sucking her lower lip, tasting sweetness and needing more and needing her and she arches away from him and he pulls her back in and –

Her moan the sweetest sound he ever heard, goosebumps on his skin as her hands pull him closer and push him away, and he growls into her mouth. Fingers on her behind heaving one of her legs up, the other hand still holding her chin in place, not letting her go. A second of a breath between them.

“Adrien.”

A warning. She could have stopped him. Just one word, and he would have melted underneath her fire. She could have stopped him, but her chest moves hastily and her body is too close. Because no matter what the answer really is, her body keeps craving him, and it’s the one thing grounding him in the here and now. Watching her expression, torn between outcomes, but she doesn’t move away.

“Adrien, just –”

Nothing could have made it better. None of her cutting, icy words. Shutting her up by crashing his lips against hers, claiming what belongs to him. A wave of ecstasy as he feels her finally giving in, softening underneath demanding hands. Her leg around his hips, and he hisses at the feeling of her grinding against him, of fingers eagerly slipping beneath his shirt. Nails scratching him until he grips her behind harder, until his hand finds the back of her head, her strands tangling between his fingers. He tugs hard and mercilessly, a cry spilling from her lips as he kisses a messy trail down her throat. Underneath his tongue, her pulse is rapidly pounding away. He sucks at it, tasting every last sound she releases. Stuttering hips rock against him.

“Adrien,” she tries again, a plea this time.

His name, it’s always his name. Because she needs him. She needs him, and hand still in her hair, he kisses her neck again. The feeling of shaking fingers on his stomach, on his chest. She needs him, and he needs her, and she whimpers when he sucks on another patch of skin, her sweet taste driving him mad. Leaving blueish marks until she is trembling in pain and pleasure.

He pushes her head back up to him, slowly grinds against her hips. Eyes closed, lips parted, she complies to his rhythm.

He hasn’t felt so weak in a long time, and it almost makes him bite back tears.

His fingers wander lower, over her jaw, wrap around her throat. She shivers violently and opens her eyes. He knows the conflict dancing through darkened blue. Wanting to run away, wanting to stay; he’ll make the choice for her.

When she speaks, he feels the vibration of her words against his palm. “I’m not scared of you,” she says, steadily holding his gaze.

His thumb caresses one of the marks he left.

“I would never be scared of you,” she goes on.

He squeezes lightly. Her hips press against him harder, and she closes her eyes again. Her raspy breaths tumble through her throat. He can feel every single one of them, his to take and his to control. Weak fingers try to find purchase on him, and he kisses the shell of her ear.

“You don’t need to be scared,” he whispers to her. “You are mine, anyway.”

He doesn’t need an answer. He doesn’t need to be told what she thinks. He lets go of her, takes a step back. With a thud, her foot lands on the floor again, and she holds herself up with trembling arms. A mess. Nothing but a mess, needing him so much desire must shoot through her whole body.

“Turn around,” he tells her.

“Tell me you love me,” she returns.

Almost makes him want to laugh. So sure of the answer, and it’s too easy to bare himself before her, every tiniest bit of his soul, endless fragments to crush and to stomp on, and he won’t complain. He never could.

“I love you,” he rasps.

She looks at him. Doesn’t move. Impatience crashes through him, makes him desperate, makes him so desperate he grabs her hips and turns her around, pressing her against the counter. She doesn’t free herself, doesn’t give a sound as his fingers on her chin force her closer, her back against his body, lips grazing her temple.

“I love you,” he repeats.

She exhales. His hand wanders from her hips to the hem of her jeans, slipping beneath them until he feels her slick arousal. He groans, kissing her temple, her cheek, pressing his fingers against her until she mewls.

“You want me,” he says. “Don’t you? You want me.”

She nods weakly, and he rubs her harder.

“Say it.”

“I want you,” she whimpers.

“Say you need me.”

She moves against his fingers, a sweet sound tumbling from her lips. “I need you.”

Maybe, someday, he can ask her to love him too.

It’s the desperation clawing at his heart. It’s the pain shooting through his veins. She is his. She was for years, and a part of her will always be his. His to caress and his to break. He bends her over the counter, pulling her jeans and her underwear down, revealing her to him. She is shaking, blurring the line between lust and fear, but still, her arousal sticks to his fingers, and her whimpers are filled with despairing pleasure.

“I want you too,” he tells her, belt clicking as he opens it. When she wants to look at him, he holds her back by pressing a hand between her shoulder blades. “I need you. Marinette, I need you.”

Midnight hair on white furniture, needing him at least right here, right now. Her heavy breaths a cruel melody, and there’s no need to wait before he pushes himself into her. Her back arches, her breath tumbles, mixing with the moan escaping his throat. A connection so deep not even she could sever it. Feeling her, feeling everything, every heartbeat and every gasp, every moan and every quiver of her limbs as his thrusts shock her body. It’s his. In this moment, she is his, his to use and his to claim, his to love and his to hate, and his pace is merciless and deep until her voice slithers through wordless silence.

“Kitty, Chat, Chat, wait, wait …”

He doesn’t want to stop. He doesn’t want to stop driving into her, feeling nothing but her heat and forgetting everything around him. But his lady calls for him, and he pauses in his movements, weak to her pleas until he leans over her, lips on the base of her neck.

“My lady,” he whispers.

“Slow down.” She moves her hips against him, steadily and controlled. Takes him deeper until he nearly sobs against her skin. “See? Yes, just like that. Come on, my kitten. Go on.”

He does. Listening carefully to her stuttering mewls. Years of pleasing her taught him how to move, what to do. Of course he knows. Of course he learned how to drive her over the edge, prioritizing her completion time and time again, and yet, her words of praise are too much. “Yes, like that” and “mm, that’s good” and “yes, kitten, don’t stop, don’t stop”. His hand searching for hers, fingers closing over her knuckles, holding on and on as his deep thrusts make her mutter beautiful, cruel words. His lips on her sweaty skin. Nothing but a pawn to her desires, he always was, and instead of moving in unison, she moves against him until he loses all his rhythm.

She comes with a drawn-out, content moan, riding it out and riding it out, allowing him to feel every bit of her pleasure, allowing him to see reddened cheeks and to touch her until he reaches his peak, too. Body shaking, all air being pushed out of his lungs until her scent makes him dizzy, the only thing lasting after the world came to a momentary stop her presence underneath him.

Their heavy breaths in silence. His fingers still holding on to her hand. Squeezing so hard it must hurt. He doesn’t want to move. He doesn’t want to face what is sure to come. He doesn’t dare kiss her skin again. His eyes stay closed, and it’s quiet in darkness, quiet except for his heartbeat reaching up to his throat.

She shifts.

He doesn’t let go.

“Adrien,” she says, all desire extinguished.

He has to let go.

Heaving himself off her, his hand leaving hers. It hardly takes a moment until she moves too, hastily pulling up her underwear and her jeans. He looks away as he fixes his own clothes.

He feels exhausted. Leans against the kitchen island. Still can’t look at her. He thinks he can see dust dancing through darkness.

“I need a shower,” her voice cuts through quietness. “I don’t think wine would be a good idea.”

She isn’t wrong.

The sound of her steps. Hasty and quick, trying to escape him. He wants to laugh. Cleans himself up to his best ability, washes his hands, fills himself a glass of red wine. Walks back to the living room, bottle and glass in his hands. The quiet sound of the shower, and when she comes back into the room after minutes and minutes on end, he is at his third glass.

For a long time, she looks at him. For a long time, he looks back.

“I think I need to move out,” she says.

His world shatters. He tries to smile.

“Oh, chéri. She wants to move out?”

Adrien nods, cheeks burning. Food almost untouched in front of him.

“Don’t you worry, my dear. I know what to do, okay?”

He hesitantly looks up. “What do you want to do?”

“Well, chéri. Throwing away what you’ve built for five years? I’m sure Marinette will be really understanding if I tell her exactly why she shouldn’t do it. After all, you love her.”

“She doesn’t love me.”

Hard, destructive words. His fingers twitch to grab the plate and throw it across the whole room. He stays obedient and silent. Waits for Emilie’s words to shatter him further.

“I needed years to love your father, too.”

 _Did you ever?_ he wants to spit. He doesn’t allow himself to.

“I needed years,” she repeats, sighing. “I didn’t have a mother like myself, though. One that made sure her boy’s every need was met.”

The corners of his mouth twitch. “You don’t have to do this.”

“Oh, it’s the easiest thing to do. I love you, after all.”

His eyes drift back to his food. His fork pierces vegetable after vegetable. Almost comical. Years ago, it was so easy for Marinette to utter those words, too.

He needs her to say it.

He needs her to say it just once.

He needs her.

“So don’t worry your pretty head over this. Everything will be okay. Your mom will see to it, okay?”

He keeps staring at his food, nodding slowly.

Later, when he is about to leave, he stops in front of the office. Once it was his father’s. Now it is Emilie’s. She threw out paintings and hung up new ones. She threw out Nathalie and let her back in, laughing at her when she thought Adrien wasn’t listening. These days, Nathalie drapes herself in silence too. Sometimes, Adrien thinks he can find himself in the glances they exchange.

It’s easier than finding words, at least.

“This is the fourth time already,” Emilie says. Her voice is sharp and cutting like ice. Adrien winces. He remains unseen next to the open door. He doesn’t glance in.

Steps.

“Marinette, ma puce. This isn’t about me at all. Listen, just what would happen if a journalist found out about all these little dirty things you did? This is what I am worrying about.”

Steps.

“Oh, angel. No, no, you see. I cannot control the actions of others. Especially if their late-night adventures aren’t as discreet as they think they are.”

Steps.

“Ma puce, but breaking my darling boy’s heart? People won’t take kindly to it.”

The steps stop.

“Oh, there’s no need to cry.”

A little huff, a laugh.

“Also, no need to get vulgar.”

The clicking of nails against a hard surface.

“Angel, listen, listen. Don’t worry! Everything will be fine. Sit down, think about this again. And, ma puce, it’s okay! It’s okay. The body is weak, after all. Look elsewhere, but know your roots, will you?”

The clicking stops.

“And you don’t have to. This is not about love, angel.”

Adrien wants to gag. He doesn’t. He waits for a sickeningly sweet goodbye, and for Emilie’s heels to click against tiles, and when she sees him, she freezes. Just a moment. Just a flicker. Just a smile, soft and warm.

“Oh, chéri. Just arrived here?”

He looks at her. He’s taller than her, even with her heels. He feels small and insignificant.

“Yes,” he says.

“Good. I just talked to Marinette.” A hand softly rubbing his back as she walks on. He follows her lead. “Tomorrow morning, she’ll be back.”

He nods.

“What a wonderful girl! Able to see reason that quickly.”

He nods.

“A catch, isn’t she? No wonder you love her so much.”

He nods. “She’s an angel.”

Emilie laughs, her hand leaving his back. “I agree, my dear. I agree.”

An angel. _Just like you_.


End file.
